Charting ResScan and Zeo – for geeks and techies?

[Jay Aitchsee]

Here's a chart I thought you might find interesting. It's my ResScan and Zeo data from July 2011 into Jan 2013. I created it by using the “export” function of both applications, exporting the data in CSV format into a spreadsheet (I use Open Office) and then selecting the variables to chart. I used 15 day moving averages to smooth the results a bit. The thing that really stands out is the increase in Deep Sleep in the last few months.

I have been using XPAP for more than 5 years, but like many, I continued to suffer from fatigue. So, about 3 years ago, I really started to work at becoming compliant, improving my sleep hygiene, and trying prescriptions to calm my diagnosed PLMD (none worked, BTW). Around October of 2011, I changed my diet to exclude most processed foods and have lost about 20 lbs. About that time, I also looked at my blood work and began supplementing my deficiencies, namely D3, B12, and Thyroid, all of which were low.

Prior to July 2011, my Deep Sleep as measured by 3 PSG's and Zeo had always been less than 10 minutes. I figured if I could increase my Deep Sleep, my fatigue would improve.

So now, my Deep Sleep as measured by Zeo has improved a lot. Nearly normal for my age. Is Zeo right? Has my Deep Sleep actually improved? I think yes. My fatigue is better, not miraculously, but better. I feel different in the mornings. I actually feel a little more groggy when I first wake than I used to, and I think most telling, is that I am not getting up at all during the night. Three or four years ago, I was getting up 2 or 3 times a night. Lately, not at all!

So, if my Deep Sleep has increased...why? It would be easy to say it was the mask or the CoQ10, or perhaps a combination of factors (most likely). Or, perhaps something else altogether. Looking at the data, it appears my Deep Sleep improves as daylight savings time ends. Coincidence? Maybe.

So, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing, try to practice good sleep hygiene, keep looking for the most comfortable non leaking mask, watch my blood work, and see what happens in the summer.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Jay

[MaxDarkside]

Fascinating (Spock-like eyebrow look). How much CoQ10 do you take and when do you take it (AM, PM?). I notice you had an increase in Deep (no where as big) during this part of the season last year. I see about a 2 week delay between the mask / CoQ10 change and the rise in Deep. You could stop EITHER the CoQ10 or switch back to the Quattro FX and see if Deep steps down, or not.

[Jay Aitchsee]

How much CoQ10 do you take and when do you take it (AM, PM?).
... I notice you had an increase in Deep (no where as big) during this part of the season last year.

Hey Max, I've been taking 1 Qunol Ultra 100% Natural COQ10 100mg Softgels from Wal Mart daily. I take them and all other meds in the morning, except my statin which I take 1/2 morning and 1/2 evening.
Yes, that seasonal change is what prompted my comment about daylight savings time. I remember this year it seemed to impact my sleep when we changed.
I do think D3 has had a positive effect on my sleep, although this chart is not set up to show it. I do have some data which correlates pretty well with starting and stopping it.

J

[Always tired]

Jay,
Excellent work!
Are you using your modified Quattro headgear (for the Zeo) during the period shown. Any other tweaks to your mask, stop, start or change an exercise program, change to bedding including pillow? I see Deep rise about October 2x, did you stop using the A/C about that month, perhaps nothing to do with time change--cooler temps?
A T

[Jay Aitchsee]

A T, all good questions. Thanks for your interest.
I do have much more detailed info that answers some of them. What I've shown here is kind of an overview since I've had my Zeo with only the most significant variables shown.
Most of the time, I've worn my modified headgear (before and after the Fx). Very recently however, I've just been wearing the Zeo above the forehead piece. Also very recently, I've been wearing the integrated chin strap. I don't see any difference in data relating to the position fo the Zeo, but the chin strap has tended to minimize the number of awakenings (both conscious and not) per night. I did change my pillow last summer - it took two or three before I found the one. Also, I try to get in an hour of exercise on most days and data does tend to show better sleep with exercise.
In October 2011, I was in the middle of some drug trials, including the addition of D3. I ran each drug for different periods of time, but basically for 30 days each, sometimes shorter if the drug was not tolerable or had negative effects. I did find a combination that seemed to improve my deep sleep, but as I mentioned earlier, they caused me gastric distress (ulcer) and had to be discontinued. I do attribute the rise in deep during that time period to the drugs, but when I put the chart together the similarity of the two periods kind of jumped out. It very well could be that something in the environment has an effect on my sleep during those periods, like the AC and temperatures, for example. Or, a later sunrise. We'll have to wait and see if the pattern reoccurs.
Speaking of Zeo. How are you doing with yours? Did you ever find a way to make it work? I've been curious about how it was working for you.
J

[Always tired]

Speaking of Zeo. How are you doing with yours? Did you ever find a way to make it work?

Jay
I never was able to get the Zeo Sleep Manager Pro to work with the IPhone. I tried several work arounds suggested by Zeo and from the Web and none of them worked. I returned the system to Best Buy and tried to purchase the Zeo Bedside, but they were out the item and it can not be shipped from another store. I went online and found more than half of the Best Buy stores in N. Cal and N. Nevada are out too. I emailed Zeo and got a response that they expected some soon. Just went on the Zeo site and selected shop-bedside (or any of the other systems) I get a 404 error message.
The Bedside is available on Amazon, but for almost $300 and I won't pay $300 for a $150 unit.
A T

[Jay Aitchsee]

The Bedside is available on Amazon, but for almost $300 and I won't pay $300 for a $150 unit.

No, I wouldn't either. Chunkyfrog wondered if they were discontinuing the Bedside unit. I'm starting to wonder, too. The availability has been severely restricted since Sandy. At first, I thought it may have been due to the storm, but now I don't know.
Stay tuned for a post which I think dramatically demonstrates the link between low leaks, apneas, and deep sleep.

J

[Always tired]

The Bedside is available on Amazon, but for almost $300 and I won't pay $300 for a $150 unit.

No, I wouldn't either. Chunkyfrog wondered if they were discontinuing the Bedside unit. I'm starting to wonder, too. The availability has been severely restricted since Sandy. At first, I thought it may have been due to the storm, but now I don't know.
Stay tuned for a post which I think dramatically demonstrates the link between low leaks, apneas, and deep sleep.

J

Jay,
I shot off a "what's going on with you guys" email to Zeo this morning and got the standard computer generated reply--I'll post if it arrives.

Was thinking about your sleep database, have you ever checked to see if one day of the week is consistently better or worse than the others?

[patrissimo]

Wow, that's a huge, sudden change. I wonder if there's any chance that Zeo updated their algorithm or something like that? It also looks like your leak percentage went down with the mask change. Would be interesting for you to try going back to the Quattro FX for a week and see whether your deep sleep goes back down.

Whatever it is, a change that big is worth figuring out, I'd sure like to replicate it!

[Jay Aitchsee]

Was thinking about your sleep database, have you ever checked to see if one day of the week is consistently better or worse than the others?

No, I haven't, but being retired I doubt there would be a huge difference.

Wow, that's a huge, sudden change. I wonder if there's any chance that Zeo updated their algorithm or something like that? It also looks like your leak percentage went down with the mask change.

I don't think there has been any change in algorithms or such. That's pretty much controlled by the user with the bedside. I do think leaks, even small ones, play a big part in quality of sleep. Watch for my next thread.

[MyIdaho]

Most of the time, I've worn my modified headgear (before and after the Fx). Very recently however, I've just been wearing the Zeo above the forehead piece. Also very recently, I've been wearing the integrated chin strap. I don't see any difference in data relating to the position fo the Zeo, but the chin strap has tended to minimize the number of awakenings (both conscious and not) per night.

Jay,

How did you modify your quattro headgear? As I understand the above, you no longer feel it is necessary to use a modified quattro with the zeo and simply wear the zeo above the forehead piece, is my understanding correct? Is it cumbersome to export zeo data to excel?

Thanks!

Rick

[Jay Aitchsee]

Rick, rather than go into a long discussion about how I modified headgear, just let me say that it primarily involves placing the Zeo sensor in the headgear (discarding the Zeo headband) where the forehead piece of the mask would normally go and then finding a way to attach the top of the mask, with or without the forehead piece, to the headgear. One of my favorite ways was to put the sensor in the headgear, run a rubber band between the sensor pad and the zeo transmitter, remove the soft part of the forehead piece and fasten the remaining forehead piece to the Zeo transmitter with the rubber band. Still turned out long, didn't it?

My advice would be to forget the mod and just wear it above the forehead piece of the mask if you have room under you hairline. I put sensor above the forehead piece and then pull the Zeo headband low in the back so that it rides right on top of my ears, between my ears and my head. They do have those little fuzzy things on the headband that are meant to use in that position if it bothers your ears. Both positions of the sensor seem to yield the same results.

If you have any experience using Excel and spreadsheets you shouldn't have any difficulty exporting the data. On the home page of My Zeo, is an "export data" function at the right center of the page. It will export the data in CSV format and you just need to open it with the appropriate Excel function. I don't use Excel, I use Open Office, but they are very similar. I'm sure if you look under something like "spreadsheet, import data, CVS format" in the help section of Excel it will probably walk you through it. The function you will ultimately want to end up with is "Text to Column" to create the spreadsheet. In reality, it's a one or two click operation.

Jay

[Jay Aitchsee]

Here's a look at the same data from another perspective. Deep Sleep compared to AI. I would like to see Deep compared to Leak, but the default ResScan Leak export is the median and there just isn't enough variation in my median leak info to produce a meaningful result. I haven't looked to see if a different leak variable can be exported. In the meantime, I think AI is a pretty good surrogate for leak.
No real surprises here. Deep trends up as AI trends down. I'm not sure what going on around data point 430. I'll have to pull that section out and investigate.
J

[patrissimo]

Wow, awesome! I'm very interested in this stuff. I've been collecting Zeo & CPAP data for my few weeks of CPAP, but I haven't had time to do anything with it yet. I'm surprised it's so noisy, but glad to see there is some trend in the expected direction.

Is your deep sleep var in minutes per hour, or total minutes for the night, or %age of the night? Can you do a scatter plot rather than having the AI events be cumulative or sorted as it looks like you've done? That would give us a better feel for the correlation - I'm curious what the R^2 on the scatter plot fit line will be.

I'm hoping to do a bunch of this kind of work when I finish up my current contract and have some free time, we'll see...

[Jay Aitchsee]

The Deep Sleep in both examples Is in minutes per night as a 15 unit moving average. Yes, the second example is sorted by AI in Events/Hour for the night. I'll have to review scatter plots.
There is a lot of "noise" in the data, but as you point out, trends are evident which does make it useful.
Looking forward to seeing your work, when you get time.
Jay